Wu-Tang members pay tribute to Grant with GZA saying ‘His passing is a profound loss’ and Method Man posting ‘I am not okay’
Oliver “Power” Grant, a close affiliate and early backer of the hip-hop collective Wu-Tang Clan who had a hand in many of the group’s albums and business ventures, has died aged 52.
The death was confirmed by Wu-Tang Clan. “Rest in power, Power,” the collective wrote on social media. A cause of death was not revealed.
Continue reading...Defence minister says pace has already increased but more nets needed amid Russian attacks; Zelenskyy says Ukrainian delegation to meet Trump envoys. What we know on day 1,464
Ukraine will speed up the placement of anti-drone nets over roads in frontline areas, aiming to cover 4,000km of roads by the end of this year, the defence minister has said. A growing number of nets have been installed over the past year but more were needed, Mykhailo Fedorov said, adding that an additional 1.6bn hryvnias ($37m) had been allocated from the budget to bolster protection measures and counter Russian drones. Moscow has been targeting military supply routes and rear bases deeper and deeper into Ukraine with the remotely piloted aircraft and drones have also struck hospitals, infrastructure and civilian traffic. Nets can snag propellers and prevent drones from reaching their targets. “In just one month, we increased the speed [of coverage] from 5km per day in January to 12km in February,” Fedorov said on Telegram on Wednesday. “This significantly improved the safety of military movements and ensured stable functioning of frontline communities. In March, we plan to close 20km of roads per day.”
A Ukrainian delegation will meet Donald Trump’s envoys on Thursday in the run-up to another round of trilateral talks with Russia, Volodymyr Zelenskyy said. Rustem Umerov, the secretary of Ukraine’s National Security and Defence Council, is due to hold talks with Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner in Geneva, the Ukrainian president told reporters on Wednesday. Thursday’s meeting will include addressing details of a possible postwar recovery plan for Ukraine, Zelenskyy said, adding that he had also tasked Umerov with discussing a possible prisoner exchange. Ukraine expected the US-brokered talks with Russia to take place next week, Zelenskyy said. Meanwhile, the Kremlin’s economic affairs envoy Kirill Dmitriev planned to travel to Geneva on Thursday to meet US negotiators for talks, the Russian state news agency Tass reported. A US push for peace has already brought Russia and Ukraine to the table in Abu Dhabi and Geneva this year but the talks produced no breakthrough as the war enters its fifth year.
Repairs to the Druzhba pipeline that carries Russian oil to eastern Europe cannot be completed quickly despite requests from the EU and protests by Hungary, Zelenskyy said on Wednesday. “Firstly, it’s not that fast,” he told reporters, adding that Russian strikes had destroyed the pipeline linking the Black Sea port of Odesa with Druzhba. “This is not their first strike, and they continue to hit the energy sector.” Shipments of Russian oil to Hungary and Slovakia have been cut off since 27 January, when Kyiv says a Russian strike hit pipeline equipment in western Ukraine, and Slovakia and Hungary say Ukraine is to blame for the prolonged outage. The European Commission president, Ursula von der Leyen, said during a visit to Kyiv on Tuesday to mark the war’s fourth anniversary that the EU was asking Ukraine to speed up repairs. Zelenskyy said: “They advise us to repair it, but they know that there have already been attacks on Druzhba. Our people were injured so that it would work.”
The first Ukrainian drone production plant has started its operations in Britain, Ukraine’s ambassador said on Wednesday. Valerii Zaluzhnyi, a former commander of the Ukrainian armed forces, said the producer, Ukrspecsystems, founded in 2014, had proved the efficiency of its drones on the frontline. “Ukraine is fighting a war amid constant missile strikes, infrastructure destruction and threats to production facilities,” he said on Telegram. “Therefore, the launch of production in the UK has a deep strategic logic.”
Switzerland’s government announced that the purchase and import of Russian liquefied natural gas would be completely banned from 25 April, as the country aligns itself with the latest round of EU sanctions. It added that in the case of pre-existing long-term supply contracts, a transition period would apply until the end of the year.
Continue reading...Actor, who was diagnosed with MS in 2021, says taking her 15-year-old daughter to school has become her ‘favourite thing to do’
Christina Applegate has revealed that she is now largely confined to her bed, five years after she was diagnosed as having multiple sclerosis.
In an interview with People magazine before the release of her memoir, the 54-year-old actor said she spends a lot of her days in bed due to the pain that comes with movement.
The Guardian will run an extract from Christina Applegate’s memoir, You With the Sad Eyes, on 28 February
Continue reading...Exclusive: Former New Zealand PM ‘based out of Australia’, according to spokesperson, after rumours she was looking for houses in Sydney
The former New Zealand prime minister Jacinda Ardern is living in Australia with her family, a spokesperson has confirmed.
“The family has been travelling for a few years now,” her office told the Guardian.
Continue reading...Supa Nova by Chanté Timothy, a graphic novel about a young Black girl with a love for science, won the children’s fiction category and inaugural children’s choice prize
Six female authors have been crowned winners of the 2026 Inclusive Books for Children (IBC) awards.
The literacy charity’s prizes celebrate the best UK-published inclusive titles for children aged one to nine. This year marks the second time that all the winners have been women since the prizes were launched in 2023.
Continue reading...Damning inquiry into services in England reveals falsification of medical records after ‘negligent’ care
What is the national maternity and neonatal investigation and why was it launched?
Cruel comments, racism and cover-ups: key findings from England’s maternity care report
Hospitals that cause harm and injury to women and babies during childbirth often resort to a “cover-up” of their mistakes, falsify medical records and deny bereaved parents answers, a damning report has found.
“Negligent” care has devastating emotional and psychological consequences for families, disputes between maternity staff have a “disastrous” impact on mothers, and ethnic minority and poorer women have worse outcomes because of racism and discrimination, Lady Amos said.
Banning families from being involved in investigations into the mistakes they encountered.
Conducting inquiries into errors which families think are poor quality and do not properly reflect what occurred.
Driving distressed families to instigate legal action as a way of getting at the truth after they were “denied openness and honesty in the aftermath of harm and bereavement”.
Failing to treat families who have lost a baby with compassion.
Continue reading...Nearly three months after the Trump administration allowed Nvidia to sell its H200 accelerator in China, the GPU giant is still waiting for Beijing to allow them in and for any revenue to materialize.…
Security vulnerabilities in Claude Code could have allowed attackers to remotely execute code on users' machines and steal API keys by injecting malicious configurations into repositories, and then waiting for a developer to clone and open an untrustworthy project.…
Add privacy to the list of potential casualties caused by the proliferation of AI, because researchers have found that large language models (LLMs) can be used to deanonymize internet users – even those who use pseudonyms – more efficiently than human sleuths.…
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BASSETERRE (ANP/RTR) - De Verenigde Staten gaan zelf verifiëren wat er is gebeurd met de speedboot uit Florida die is beschoten door Cuba. Dat zei minister van Buitenlandse Zaken Marco Rubio op een top in St. Kitts en Nevis in het Caribische gebied.
Volgens de Cubaanse regering voer de boot de Cubaanse kustwateren binnen en opende het vuur op een schip van de Cubaanse kustwacht. Daarop hebben de Cubanen teruggeschoten en vier mensen gedood en zes verwond.
De kapitein van de Cubaanse kustwacht raakte bij de schotenwisseling gewond. De gewonden op de Amerikaanse speedboot zijn van boord gehaald en worden behandeld aan hun verwondingen.
Rubio zei dat de aanwezigheid van de boot geen Amerikaanse operatie was en dat er geen Amerikaanse regeringsfunctionarissen bij de gebeurtenissen betrokken zijn.
De spanningen tussen Cuba en de Verenigde Staten zijn de afgelopen weken sterk opgelopen. Washington stelde een blokkade in voor olie die naar Cuba werd geëxporteerd en speculeert over een machtswisseling op het eiland.
DEN HAAG (ANP) - Investeerders hebben in het vierde kwartaal van vorig jaar de meeste woningen verkocht sinds 2021, meldt het Kadaster. Daarmee zet de verkoopgolf van woningen door investeerders duidelijk door.
In totaal verkochten investeerders ruim 20.700 huizen, een stijging van 5,3 procent ten opzichte van een jaar eerder. Tegelijkertijd kochten ze bijna 8900 huizen, wat neerkomt op een daling van 4 procent. Het verschil tussen het aantal verkochte en aangekochte woningen door investeerders neemt sinds 2023 toe. Dit komt onder andere door strengere regels voor verhuur in dat jaar, waardoor verhuren minder aantrekkelijk is.
Eigenaren die zelf in de woning gaan wonen, kopen steeds vaker huizen die voorheen in handen waren van investeerders. Eigenaar-bewoners waren landelijk goed voor 16 procent van de aankopen van voormalige investeerderswoningen. Begin 2021 lag dat aandeel nog rond de 7 procent.
In de grote steden Amsterdam, Rotterdam, Utrecht en Den Haag ligt het percentage aanzienlijk hoger. Daar was in het vierde kwartaal van vorig jaar bijna 28 procent van de woningaankopen door eigenaar-bewoners voorheen in het bezit van een investeerder. In 2021 was dit 13 procent.
Daarnaast verkopen investeerders hun huizen over het algemeen voor een lagere prijs dan eigenaar-bewoners. Vooral buiten de grote steden is dit verschil het grootst. Daar betaalden eigenaar-bewoners gemiddeld 360.000 euro voor een woning van een investeerder. Kochten ze van een andere eigenaar-bewoner, dan betaalden ze gemiddeld 141.000 euro meer.
In heel 2025 kochten investeerders 27.000 woningen, en verkochten ze 65.000 woningen. Aan het begin van dit jaar was 9 procent van de woningvoorraad in handen van investeerders. Begin 2024 was dit nog 9,4 procent. Vooral in de vier grote steden is het bezit van particuliere investeerders afgenomen.
Noot voor de redactie, niet voor publicatie:
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